The Print Project: Hokusai, Monet and Lichtenstein

What happens when Roy Lichtenstein translates mass media printing techniques, notably the Benday dot, into paintings and then back into print? What has happened that the final result does not land back into the banal?

Another story of the path from print into painting and back into print might help explain that.

Much of Monet’s work was influenced by Japanese prints. The prints offer a view of everyday life, emulated by the Impressionists, but they also captured an instant.

Hokusai

So, not only would a Hokusai print depict a flower, but a flower in a particular wind and weather. Note the wings of a the butterfly.

Monet, “Grainstack”

When asked about the origin of Monet’s series of paintings “Grainstacks”, he said that he was working in the field and noticed the light changing. He asked his step-daughter, Blanche, who frequently assisted him, to bring him another canvas, and another and another. He changed the canvases every few minutes to accommodate the changing light.

I think that it is far more likely that Monet’s inspiration for the series came from Hokusai’s “36 Views of Mt. Fuji”. Monet collected Japanese prints and owned several biographies of Hokusai.

Hokusai, “Mount Fuji”

In Hokusai’s “36 Views of Mount Fuji”, he captured the iconic mountain under numerous conditions. Monet did the same with his “series paintings”, but perhaps most famously with his Rouen Cathedral paintings. Here, the monolith is transformed by light.

Monet, “Rouen Cathedral”

In 1968 Roy Lichtenstein used photos of Monet’s cathedrals for a series of paintings and lithographs, using not the Impressionist dash or even the pointillist’s dot, but the banal Benday dot.

Lichtenstein not only reinterprets Monet’s series, but gives a nod to the original print source of Hokusai.

2 Comments

Laura
on October 11, 2012 at 3:41 am

Leslie – Love this. I am a parent doing Art Appreciation in two 2nd grade classrooms. Last month, I discussed Monet’s Haystacks & Roy Lichtenstein’s Haystacks (among some other things). This month I thought about discussing influence of Japanese prints on Impressionists/Post Impressionists and had settled on featuring Monet (Mt Fuji) & Van Gogh (The Great Wave). I had toyed with showing Lichtenstein again when discussing Monet so I am thrilled to find your site. But can you explain how Lichtenstein “gives a nod to the original print source of Hokusai.” I’m not an art historian and am not getting it. Thanks! – Laura

Laura, I am not an art historian either, but I will give it a stab. Lictenstein is giving a nod to Hokusai precisely becasue he has taken Monet’s multiple and turned it back into a print. When Hokusai made his prints, certain aspects would be printed from the same plate in different versions. The Japanese printers also would apply ink in a much more artistic way than just putting down one color. They might shade the color from light to dark, for example. I personally believe that from the time Monet painted his wife in a kimono on, all of his painting were influenced by Japanese art. The series paintings were, I believe, influenced by Japanese prints, such as Hokusai’s 36 Vies of Mt. Fuji. But I also think that his lily paintings were influenced by Japanese screen paintings that would cover the length of a room or even surround a viewer in a room, which he may have seen in London in 1910.

There is also a great story about Hokusai that Monet undoubtedly read about in one of the several biographies he owned on Hokusai. Hokusai was asked to make a, for lack of a better term, parade float for a ceremony that would take place in the interior of Japan. This would be seen by people who had never seen the ocean. He wanted to bring to them the experience of the ocean. Imagine a large box on this cart with the side facing the edge of the road open. Inside that he painted “The Wave”. It was on all three sides and the floor and ceiling. As the cart rumbled over the cobble stones it would bounce and sway, just like the ocean. The bystanders would feel the ocean enveloping them as the cart passed before them.